BOXING FOR FITNESS
TAKES THE FIGHT TO
PARKINSON’S DISEASE
A lifetime teaching the many
benefits of exercise hadn’t
prepared Steve Schiemer
for the remarkable effect it
would have on his own health
condition.
30 | NETWORK SPRING 2017
hese days, most of us know
someone who has Parkinson’s
disease, or knows someone, who
knows someone with the condition. If you’re
reading this article and thinking you’ve never
encountered anyone with Parkinson’s, just
hold on a minute, because now you have!
For the past eight years I’ve been living
with Parkinson’s, a condition that, according
to Parkinson’s NSW, affects close to 100,000
people in Australia. When you add in those
affected by the condition (family, friends
and carers) close to one million people in
Australia alone are affected by this disease.
A
neurodegenerative
disorder,
Parkinson’s
is caused by the death or
deterioration of brain cells that produce
dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps
regulate movement, coordination and
emotional responses. This can lead to motor
symptoms such as tremors, slowness of
movement (or bradykinesia), muscle rigidity,
postural instability, impaired balance or
coordination, and problems with speech.
There are also non-motor symptoms such as
loss of smell, sleep disturbances and mood
disorders.
I was 39 when the symptoms first
appeared, as a small tremor in my hands and
occasionally in my legs. It took 12 months
for my doctors to come to the decision
T
that I had early onset Parkinson’s disease
(the average age of onset is late 50’s, but
three Australians a day under the age of
40 are also diagnosed). Amazingly, this
diagnosis was made after months of tests
for almost every rare, obscure condition that
involved the nervous system. When all of
these tests came back negative, they gave
me a two-week supply of pills which I was
to try, and to provide feedback on. After
two weeks I was feeling great! My tremors
had calmed and I felt somewhat normal.
Turns out that the pills were Parkinson’s
medication, so it only stood to reason that I
had Parkinson’s disease. Yep, in this day
and age, there is still no test for diagnosing
Parkinson’s disease. It’s diagnosed by
listing your symptoms, eliminating all
other possible causes of those symptoms,
and trying the medication to see if it helps!
I’ll be honest with you, it’s not much fun.
On top of the disease itself and its many
symptoms, which vary widely from person
to person (they say that once you’ve met
one person with Parkinson’s, you’ve met
one person with Parkinson’s), the long term
use of Parkinson’s medications creates a
complex range of side effects, many of which
are just as bad as, and sometimes worse
than, the disease itself.
In recent years, however, a treatment